Splinter Angel Chapter 221 (Patreon)

Kaira’s moan when she finally sunk into a proper bath was borderline obscene. It was an uninhibited sound of such wanton pleasure that Jisha, who’d barely had a chance to get used to communal bathing, stared at her in open-mouthed shock. It was also loud enough that Ana was infinitely grateful for Nari’s timid suggestion that they get a private room for their group.

“Blessings-fucking-be to every deity, except the particular one who can go throw himself into the formless void, for hot water,” the Evoker groaned as she sank down to her bottom lip. “I mean, I can heat water, but keeping it between warm and take your skin off is hard! This? I can’t do this! You need a professional for this! How long has it been?”

“Twelve. Weeks.” Messy said deliberately, then sighed with bliss as she sank into the water. “Twelve bloody weeks since Aaspiyah and her friends razed the bathhouse,” she continued, sounding half-dazed as she adapted to the near-scalding temperature. “All praise and respect to the staff for getting a replacement going, but it wasn’t this.”

“I can’t believe they did that,” Lara said indignantly. “Or rather, I can. Saphahran aristocrats can be…”

“They think that they’re the only ones who matter?” Ana suggested, smiling wryly.

“That, exactly,” Lara agreed. “So I can believe it. I’m just embarrassed to be in any way associated with someone like that.”

“You’re not,” Nari said softly, laying her hand on Lara’s shoulder. “You rejected everything to do with them.”

Lara sighed. “Yes, well… unless I take care how I speak, I’ll be associated with them whether I want to or not. But thank you.”

Nari smiled at her gently, then caught sight of her own shoulder rising out of the water and quickly sank down again. The Swordswoman hadn’t objected to going to a bathhouse once they’d secured their rooms — at a discount, thank you Lotri — but her relief had been palpable when the other women readily agreed to splurge on a group room. And even with just them there she’d been visibly embarrassed to undress, washing off and slipping into the water as quickly as she could.

For the first time, Ana had gotten a complete picture of why Nari was so insistent on her long sleeves and high collars. She didn’t agree that the woman had anything to be ashamed of, but she understood. The rough, waxy skin of her burns ran from her upper left thigh all the way to her neck, sparing her cheek and ear by no more than an inch. They stretched toward her spine on her back, and from what Ana had seen before Nari submerged herself, they covered her entire left arm down to the wrist, with tendrils reaching out for her knuckles. Whatever had done that to her must have been absolutely agonizing, and even with magic the recovery couldn’t have been anything but arduous.

Ana wasn’t the only one seeing those scars for the first time, either. Rayni had caught one glance then looked away with tears in her eyes, scrubbing Jisha’s back so hard that the girl had to ask her to be a little gentler.

Ana had gotten more than her share of furtive looks, too. Not just at her growing collection of scars, either. Neither Lara nor Nari had gotten a good look at her back before, and she could feel them staring at her tattoo as she washed herself before getting into the large bath. The tattoo that had been the reason she herself would have suggested a private room if Nari hadn’t beat her to it; it was pretty damn distinctive, and odds were that any Sentinel worshippers from Summer Angel would have either heard of or seen it.

And as always, the reaction was entirely positive. Lara either hadn’t looked or had pretended not to very convincingly, but Nari had smiled sheepishly when Ana caught her staring and just muttered, “Sorry. It’s… your art. It’s very pretty.”

“Right!?” The word burst out of Kaira like it had been sitting there, building pressure, ever since Ana took her dress off. “We’ve all told her, but it’s like she’s embarrassed about it or something. Which is crazy! Just… tell her, Messy!”

“I have. Repeatedly,” Messy said, running her thumbs along the sweep of the phoenix’s wings. How many times had she traced the lines of that tattoo during their nights together? Ana couldn’t possibly say. Then she leaned down and kissed Ana high between the shoulder blades, where the bird’s head was, and whispered, “I’ll make you believe it, yet.”

“It’s not like I hate it. It’s just…” Ana muttered, the attention making her awkward — especially there, with all of them naked and only half of them even in the water.

“Ssssh, I know,” Messy said softly. “Come on. Do my back and let’s get in the water.”

Slight awkwardness aside, having a real, proper bath for the first time in so long was amazing. Ana had only very rarely bathed back on Earth, since she exercised almost every day and showered at her gyms, but she’d come to appreciate the bone-deep heat and relaxation of immersing herself in near-scalding water. And nobody had been any happier about forgoing that particular pleasure in Ellsthal or Stamham than she had — not even Jisha, who valued cleanliness and socializing over her still very obvious embarrassment.

As though she’d been reading Ana’s mind, Rayni sighed, “Gods, I hope we don’t have to run off and hide in the mountains, or something. Fate will do what she must, but if we could have a cycle here with a few days in the outpost between Delves…”

“Can you believe that we used to only go… what? Twice per year?” Nari asked her sister.

“Hard to believe,” Rayni agreed. “Back in Summer Angel there wasn’t much that kept me coming back to the outpost, but the bathhouse was right at the front.”

“Hey!” Kaira whined indignantly.

“The bathhouse and Ladies’ Night,” Rayni corrected herself. Then, for Lara and Nari’s benefit she added. “That was Irry’s Casuals group.”

“When Komaki first suggested we go to Misery Splinter, the first thing I did was to find out if there was a bathhouse,” Nari said. “Even the worst Splinter is tolerable as long as you can have a hot bath. The one there wasn’t nearly as good as this one, though, or the one in Stamham.”

“No private rooms, for one,” Lara grouched. “Fifteen hundred people in the place, and no private rooms!”

That was, they all agreed, an absolute travesty.

“So, hate to get serious for a moment,” Kaira said after a long, comfortable silence, “but now what? Same plan as in the gate square? Lara and Nari and their boys lay low until the alignment?”

“‘Our boys?’” Lara asked.

Kaira waved her off. “Your gentlemen friends, whatever. Point is, what about the rest of us? I mean, I’ll stay at the inn if you all think that’s for the best, but…”

“I’d like to stay at the inn either way,” Messy practically purred into Ana’s ear. Then she turned and said, “But I think we should try to use the time productively. There’s a temple of the Wayfarer here. Ana should meet with the priest or priestess there. Then we need to know how things are being set up for the portal opening, so we can sneak in with the arrivals. I don’t think it’s a huge issue if we can’t but it should really help with laying low. We should figure out where things are, too. Smiths, leatherworkers, outfitters, all that. Get the lay of the land, you know? And didn’t you have someone to talk to at the guild hall, Irry?”

“Absolutely!” the Evoker said, the water sloshing around them as she bounced with excitement. “Biggest reason I don’t want to sit around! No guarantee he’s in the settlement, but won’t know if I don’t ask, right? Oh, I hope he’s an Arcflame! That’s the only Fire-and-Lightning-mage Class Drisa had in her catalogue, and I almost qualify already, but I’ve never met one, you know? I want so badly to know what to expect!”

“If we’re planning to stay in this Splinter I don’t see any reason to stay cooped up,” Ana said. “Well, I can think of one reason,” she added for Messy’s sake, bumping her girlfriend with her shoulder, only to receive a faceful of water from Jisha before she could continue.

“That’s my room, too!” the young Fighter complained, though she couldn’t hold back her laughter as Messy giggled guiltily and Ana sputtered.

“Fine, yes!” Ana finally chuckled. “I promise we’ll think of you—”

“Phrasing,” Jisha immediately interrupted, to the others’ delight.

“We’ll be considerate,” Ana continued. “What I was going to say before I was so rudely interrupted was: I think Messy’s right. I should go to the temple. I’m thinking right after breakfast?”

“I’ll come with you!” Jisha said.

“Sounds good. And then… I mean, I hate to split us up, just on principle, but Mess, Ray, and Irry, you all should probably go check out the guild hall, then see what’s available in town. Just try not to be too recognizable, alright?”

“I’ve got my hat,” Kaira said happily.

“And I haven’t worn my eyeliner or most of my jewellery since we got here. I can leave them off for a while longer,” Messy conceded. “Maybe wear my hair up instead of braided?”

“Nari’s great at that,” Rayni suggested brightly.

“I’ve seen,” Messy replied with a nod towards Nari. “Would you be so kind?”

“I’d love to. Your hair looks fun to work with.”

“Um, wouldn’t our time be better spent doing different things, though?” Rayni suggested. “With Tor and Om we’d be a big enough group going around that we may draw attention.”

“Sure,” Ana said. “Did you have something in mind?”

“Well, I thought, if Om goes with Irry and Messy to the guild hall, then me and Tor might check out the outfitters and such. And then they could maybe look into some alchemists’… I’m being rather obvious, aren’t I?” Rayni said, sinking into the water until only her eyes were above the surface.

“As easy to see through as the finest glass,” Kaira said with one of her big, toothy grins. “But I don’t see any problems with it. Does anyone else? Even if it’s just the two of you, Ana would know if you got into any trouble, right? Well, that kind of trouble. You get into the other kind all you like!”

Rayni vanished under the water entirely at that point, to Kaira’s cackling delight.

Kaira’s teasing wasn’t entirely unfair. Much like Messy had predicted, Rayni and Torden had bashfully asked if they might have a room to themselves, and not a soul had objected. They’d ended up with four rooms in total: Ana, Messy, and Jisha shared one; Rayni and Torden had theirs; Lara and Nari had graciously offered Kaira the second bed in theirs; and the remaining four men were staying together in the inn’s largest room, as that was the only one with a bed big enough for Mabb.

Sigret, Lotri’s Innkeeper sister, had been only too happy to put them up. The Innkeeper was a comfortably round woman, no taller than her sibling but as feminine as Lotri was androgynous. She’d been holding three of the rooms they now occupied, she’d told them, but the people who usually stayed there hadn’t showed up for over a week after they were supposed to be back.

“And while I certainly do hope that they’re all fine and all, I have a business to run here,” she’d said as they paid for their first two nights: a silver and six copper per head per night including morning and evening meals, and that was the discounted rate, down from two silver. “Bad Delves do happen. So do avalanches, if you head up near the snow this time of year. Oh, and you should know that if you head out during the alignment I won’t hold the rooms. Apologies for that, but there’s just too much demand for rooms while everyone shuffles about.”

So they’d gotten set up in their rooms, and while Sigret’s husband was busy preparing for the evening meal, their hostess had pointed them in the direction of a nearby eatery, where the whole Party had stopped before moving on to the bathhouse. And so, while Rayni may have been embarrassed enough to attempt drowning herself, at least she had a belly full of stirfried grains and vegetables, and a comfortable room with a real bed to look forward to. And whether she’d have any company in that bed yet was her own business. At least Ana thought so; the hyenas she’d surrounded herself with disagreed.

“She must really like Tor to be this shy about it,” Kaira said cheerfully as they waited for Rayni to resurface. “Apologies, Nari, but I know for a fact that she’s no blushing maiden.”

“She’s always been shy about boys she liked,” Nari replied fondly. “She’d had two terrible crushes when I left home, and I don’t think she ever so much as talked to either of them.”

“Maybe don’t embarrass her?” Jisha said, the only one there who didn’t look amused at the Huntress’s expense. “If she likes him that much she’s probably nervous about… you know.”

Kaira’s grin faltered a little, and she looked at the blurry shape of Rayni, who could almost certainly hear every word they said with perfect clarity. “Aw, shit. Maybe, yeah. Didn’t really think about that.”

When Rayni broke the surface with a gasp not much later, Kaira barely waited for her to catch her breath before saying, “Hey, Ray, sorry about that, yeah? I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable or anything. Or, well, not in a bad way. Listen, don’t rush with Tor, alright? He’s a patient guy. Do you need to stop by an alchemist or herbalist on the way back?”

Rayni, used to Kaira’s quick turns, looked down and shook her head. “No, I… I got that from Touanne before we left.”

“You little vixen! You’ve been planning this from the start!” Kaira cackled, her predatory grin back in full force. “Well, good on you. I take back what I said about not rushing. New advice: be obvious! Don’t leave any room for him to second guess himself. Gods know that man is too considerate for his own good, sometimes. Hana told me she—”

“Kaira, please…”

Rayni wasn’t the only one whose love-life was getting interfered with. Messy was quite a bit more appreciative, though.

Once they returned to the inn, Messy stopped outside the door and asked, “Angel, how do you feel about taking a walk around? The air’s nice.”

“No!” Jisha objected before Ana had a chance to reply, dragging them both inside as she continued speaking. “Messy, you’ve been looking at her like… I can’t say in this bloody language. You have the room for an hour!”

“Are you sure?” Ana asked, not bothering to hide her amusement at just how flustered the girl was. “We’re not animals, you know. We can—”

“Go! Get it out of her system!” the young Fighter said, looking pointedly at Messy before putting her considerable strength behind pushing them both toward the stairs. “And open the window after. I’ll knock and wait for someone to open the door.”

Messy didn’t need to be told twice. And she was strong enough by then that if Ana didn’t want to be carried up the stairs, she’d have to actively resist.

She didn’t. It had been weeks, after all, and Messy had been so very patient.